


A Fixed Point

by outruntheavalanche



Series: Author's Favorites [9]
Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Baseball, Friendship, Gen, Mentorship, Yuletide 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-09 12:24:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8890654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: The catcher is always Mike Lawson.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spyglass](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spyglass/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this, [**spyglass_**](http://spyglass_.livejournal.com/)!
> 
> Hover over the Spanish text for a translation.
> 
> Many thanks to [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/blastellanos/profile)[**blastellanos**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/blastellanos/) for betaing!

Ginny doesn’t get to pitch her first game at Fenway until her second season, when the Padres go into Boston for a three-game interleague series in the middle of June. The guys grumble about it because the travel’s brutal, even if it _is_ Boston. 

Lawson’s knees swell up on the flight and he spends the whole miserable five hours sprawled across two seats, his two-thousand dollar sports coat bunched up under his head for a pillow. He’s a terrible travel partner. 

Ginny sits across from him and aims airline peanuts at Lawson’s gaping mouth while Duarte pouts in the seat next to her and complains Lawson _está roncando_.

Ginny flicks a peanut shell off the end of her thumb at Duarte and nails him in his chin. “I’d rather listen to his snoring than your complaining.”

“I make it look sexy, no?” Duarte flashes his teeth at her, cheeks dimpling.

“What, complaining? No, not really. _No one_ makes that look sexy,” Ginny says, rolling her eyes. She turns her attention back to Lawson and his gaping, snoring mouth. She chucks another peanut at him but it hits him square in the forehead and rolls harmlessly under the seat. “Not even Chris Evans could make that look sexy.”

“Chris Evans?” Duarte pulls an exaggerated face. 

“C’mon, don’t front. He’s hot and you know it.” Ginny flicks another peanut at Lawson that disappears down the collar of his dress shirt.

“Thought you could pitch,” Duarte chides good-naturedly, still grinning. He pulls a glossy travel magazine from his seat pocket and starts flipping through it. 

“Cork and cowhide? Sure. Peanuts are a whole other ballgame,” Ginny laughs, reaching into her crinkly packet for more.

“Don’t even think about it,” Lawson grumbles, his voice thick and gritty with sleep. 

“Think about what, Lawson? We were both just sitting over here, definitely minding our own business,” Ginny says, slinging an arm around Duarte’s shoulders.

Duarte shrugs her arm away and turns in his seat to shoot Ginny a faux-offended look. “Me? Why you blame me? I had nothing to do with this.”

“You didn’t exactly stop me, now did you?” Ginny asks, shooting him finger guns.

Duarte rolls his eyes and Lawson groans. 

“You’re letting her walk all over you. You’re the catcher. You’re the captain,” Lawson needles, as he sits up, cracks his back, and stretches his legs out into the aisle. 

“You’re still captain here,” Duarte reminds him.

“I’m not playing in Boston though,” Lawson replies, his expression clouding. “You’d think they’d just park my gimpy ass in the DH spot and leave me be, but _no_.”

“It’ll be fine, Gramps,” Ginny says, reaching out to pat him on the arm. “Us inmates won’t totally overrun the asylum.”

The corner of Lawson’s mouth quirks with the hint of a smile he works at tamping down. “You already are, Baker. You already are.”

***

When they get to Fenway the next morning to prepare for that evening’s series opener, Lawson takes both Ginny and Duarte inside the Green Monster. The inner walls are covered floor to ceiling with signatures. Nearly every inch of space is covered in marker and pen ink and chalk. 

“It’s a tradition,” Lawson explains, when he catches Ginny and Duarte looking wondrously at the names inscribed on the walls, some of them legendary, some of them forgotten by the ravages of time.

“Oh, look!” Ginny tugs on Duarte’s sleeve and pulls him over to the section of the wall Lawson’s claimed for them to sign. She recites, “ ‘Michael Lawson, 6-8-2004.’ You didn’t come here ’til 2004?”

“They didn’t have interleague all year round back then,” Lawson says. “Here.” He pushes a black Sharpie into Ginny’s hand.

Ginny lets go of Duarte’s arm and sticks the cap of the marker between her teeth as she bends down to sign her name next to Lawson’s. Then she hands the marker off to Duarte and he does the same, tucking his name neatly between Ginny’s and Lawson’s.

***

Ginny sits on the bench and spits sunflower seeds into a Dixie cup at her feet. Neither she nor Lawson are playing tonight, and they find themselves huddled together on the bench. Occasionally Lawson knocks his foot against her knee, her shin. When he nudges at her with his shoulder, Ginny casts him a look.

“What?” Ginny machine-guns seeds out of her mouth and into her cup. 

“What’re you gonna do on your off-day?” Lawson crosses his arms over his chest and looks out toward the field. 

The team on said field is losing by double digits to the Yankees. Ginny’s damn sick of those chimes. She’s going to be hearing those chimes in her sleep.

“I think I’ll take a tour of the Empire State Building. I’ve never been there before,” Ginny says, reaching behind her head into a bucket of sunflower seed packets.

“Never? _Really_?” Lawson asks.

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Ginny says, ripping open a pack and dumping a mouthful of seeds into her mouth. “I didn’t have much of a childhood, you know.”

Lawson grunts. “Neither did I,” he says with a practiced, deceptively nonchalant shrug. “And even _I_ went to the Empire State Building.”

Ginny knows it’s an act. “You want a cookie?” 

“Just sayin’.” Lawson grabs the sunflower seeds out of her hand and shovels some into his own mouth. “Maybe I’ll come with you tomorrow.”

“Did I invite you?” Ginny asks, but she’s smiling. She flicks a seed at Lawson. It hits him in the nose and disappears in his beard, and Ginny laughs delightedly.

Lawson scowls and sneers, “On second thought, I think I’ll pass,” but he’s smiling too.

***

They hit the last leg of their interleague roadtrip in the middle of a sweltering Detroit heatwave. The asphalt practically shimmers with the heat, and all Ginny wants to do is blast the air conditioning unit until she’s practically an icicle. Lawson insists that she and Duarte come out with him for an off-day surprise, though, and she finds that she can’t turn him down.

When Ginny joins the two of them in the lobby of their hotel, Lawson greets her with a grin and a glossy brochure. Ginny opens it and thumbs through it, half-listening to him as he goes on about all the things they can do in Detroit.

“Like not get mugged?” Duarte pulls a slick pair of shades out of his back pocket and slides them down over his eyes.

“Take those off when we’re inside. You look like an asshole,” Lawson snarks. 

Duarte pretends he didn’t hear him. “So, what exactly _is_ there to do in Detroit on an off-day?” he asks as he fiddles with with his sunglasses’ earpiece.

“I’m taking you two to the D.I.A.,” Lawson announces.

“The _what_?” Duarte looks over to Ginny and gently elbows her in the side, gesturing at Lawson like _get a load of this asshole_.

“It’s a museum.” Ginny slaps the brochure against his chest. 

“I’m not a schoolboy anymore,” he says.

“You need some culture. And it’s my job as the oldest motherfucker on this team to give it to you. We’re going to the art museum, kiddos. Come on.” 

Lawson jerks his thumbs toward the front of the lobby; a yellow taxi cab is idling in front of the hotel, waiting for them. Ginny and Duarte glance briefly at each other, both raising their eyebrows, before following Lawson outside.

***

Ginny toes at the dirt and stares in for the signs. Lawson drops down four fingers and wiggles them—changeup—then taps his glove gently in the dirt. She flicks her gaze to the batter, who gives just the slightest twitch and tightens his gloved hands around the handle of his bat. Lawson looks up at the batter for a second, throws down a second series of signs, and quietly shifts into position.

Ginny rears back, lowering her glove, running her fingers along the seams of the baseball for the perfect grip. 

Deception, guile is as important as velocity and location. And, in Ginny’s case, it might be the most important thing about her. 

Ginny fires an eighty-three mile-per-hour fastball down the heart of the plate, knee-high. Most Major League batters would have—should have—destroyed that pitch.

Deception and guile. 

The batter locks up, knees buckling, bat resting over his shoulder as he looks the pitch into Lawson’s mitt. The umpire punches the air and Ginny can hear his voice even on the mound. 

“ _Strike three!_ ”

Lawson gets up out of his crouch and nods to her, pointing out at the mound with his mitt. Ginny stalks off the mound and turns, watching as a backwards K flashes onto the scoreboard under her name.

***

After the game, Lawson swings by her hotel room with a six-pack of Miller and a couple seasons of Family Guy. Ginny doesn’t care for the show, but she _does_ care for Lawson’s company, so they watch a few episodes before there’s a tentative knock on the door.

Ginny gets up to get the door. It’s Duarte. He’s barefoot and dressed in a t-shirt and striped pajama pants, and he looks like somebody dragged him out of bed at way too early in the morning.

“Did we wake you?” she asks, opening the door a little wider. “We’re watching Family Guy. You wanna join us?”

“I _was_ gonna tell you to knock it off, ’cause I’m trying to sleep, but sure,” Duarte says, stepping in.

Ginny shuts the door behind him and they join Lawson in the other room. Peter Griffin’s paused mid-rant.

Duarte collapses on the unoccupied bed and kicks up his feet, and Ginny joins Lawson. 

“So, continuing the convo from earlier,” Ginny says, leaning into Lawson’s shoulder and jostling him. “You ever been in a bench clearing brawl where fists were actually thrown?”

“Dodgers, 2011,” Lawson says without even pausing to think about it. “Matt Kemp challenged everyone on the team to meet him in the parking lot after the game. He was the only one who showed up.”

Ginny laughs and falls back on the bed. “I got in one brawl before the one last year,” she says. “Texas League. We were playing the Drillers in Tulsa and—” 

“Drillers is such a stupid name for a team,” Duarte cuts in.

“Nah, that’d be the Jumbo Shrimp, or whatever the hell they renamed the team in Jacksonville,” Lawson corrects.

“Anyway,” Ginny says. “I drilled a guy in the ass and I guess he didn’t like it. He threw down his bat and helmet, charged the mound. He reared back like he was gonna throw a punch, but the first baseman came out of nowhere and piledrived—piledrove?—him into the ground. I got suspended five games. I didn’t even do anything.”

“I kicked a guy once,” Duarte says. “In a game in Cuba. Suspended for two weeks and fined.”

Lawson flops back too and looks up at the ceiling. “Kids these days.”

“Good thing we got you to guide us, Gramps,” Duarte teases from the other bed.

“Yeah,” Ginny says, reaching out and patting him lightly on the chest. “Good thing we got you.”

Lawson claps his hand over hers for a moment before gently sliding out from under it. “Early morning tomorrow, you guys. Don’t stay up too late. Okay?”

The three of them say their goodnights, and Lawson and Duarte depart. After shimmying out of her t-shirt and sweats, Ginny crawls under the covers and falls quickly asleep. She dreams of fluttering screwballs and diving changeups and fastballs that zip into the catcher’s mitt.

The catcher is always Mike Lawson.


End file.
